​It is up to political parties now to boost the number of women in parliament, a retired Papua New Guinea MP says.

In 2011, PNG passed a bill to set up 22 reserved seats for women but enabling legislation was not passed in time for the following year's election.

Dame Carol Kidu entered politics in 1997 and was the only female MP from 2002 till her retirement in 2012 when three female MPs were elected.

She said the chance to reserve seats for women was gone.

"It is going to come back to political parties now. It is not going to happen by legal reform anymore that will increase the number of seats in parliament because our members now have a very large delivery fund that goes through the members and to increase that delivery fund by 10 more members or something, it will never get through."

Dame Carol said PNG could not be called a representative democracy while half of its population only had a 2.7 percent stake in parliament.